North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has spoken in the Assembly Chamber this week of the need for a secure school in North Wales to ensure serious young offenders receive the education and training they require to lead law-abiding lives.
Mr Isherwood Welsh Conservative Shadow Secretary for Communities, raised the matter during a question to the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children on Youth Justice, Carl Sargeant AM.
He said:
“In response to the Taylor Review of youth justice, which was published on Monday, the measures announced by the UK Government include launching two secure schools, concentrating on English, Maths and a range of work-training schemes to help reform and to help offenders find work on release.
“In February 2010, the Assembly’s Communities and Culture Committee produced a report, ‘Youth Justice: The experience of Welsh children in the Secure Estate’, recommending that the Welsh Government engage with the UK Government towards enabling the development of new secure estate placements in Wales, using the Hillside secure unit in Neath as a model, and including the development of provision in an appropriate location in North Wales.”
The Cabinet Secretary Carl Sargeant said the Welsh Government disagree with much of the Taylor Review and will not be introducing secure schools in Wales.
He said: “I have visited the Hillside programme. I am looking at step-down facilities. From that, we do have Welsh solutions for these problems. I don’t think the secure school process is the right and appropriate way. We shouldn’t be incarcerating our young people; we should be supporting them upfront.”
Mr Isherwood added: “It is very easy and irresponsible to say that we shouldn’t be incarcerating young people, but it is only the most serious offenders, such as those I met when I visited Hillside during our Committee Enquiry, who are locked up. Secure schools are far preferable to child prisons. While young people are in custody we need to make sure that they get the right education and training so they can lead law-abiding lives - and in turn make our streets and communities safer too. The Welsh Government should also be acting to reduce the number of young offenders who are remanded to custody because of an absence of suitable bail accommodation, as our Committee report recommended nearly seven years ago.”